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LESSON 5: UILLEANN PIPE CUTS ON BOTTOM HAND

"Ornamentation is the practice of adding notes to a melody to allow music to be more expressive."
You will be learning many different ornamentations in these lessons and before you learn these ones it's important to understand and know a few things. Styles and techniques of ornamentation vary widely among Uilleann Pipe players. The way I play ornaments is not necessarily how everyone does it, you have many options and you will eventually have a choice on how you would like to play them. These next couple of lessons are going to be centering around 'cuts' also sometimes called 'grace notes'. They are very fast little notes placed in-between longer notes to give the music some flavour. Make sure to go about these exercises slow in-order to do them correctly and resist the temptation to tense up while learning them properly. The cut is a way to attack a note. It should occur right on the beat, not before it as its written on sheet music. Its probably easier to think of the cut as having no duration and that it is just part of the note that is infront of it.
You will be learning many different ornamentations in these lessons and before you learn these ones it's important to understand and know a few things. Styles and techniques of ornamentation vary widely among Uilleann Pipe players. The way I play ornaments is not necessarily how everyone does it, you have many options and you will eventually have a choice on how you would like to play them. These next couple of lessons are going to be centering around 'cuts' also sometimes called 'grace notes'. They are very fast little notes placed in-between longer notes to give the music some flavour. Make sure to go about these exercises slow in-order to do them correctly and resist the temptation to tense up while learning them properly. The cut is a way to attack a note. It should occur right on the beat, not before it as its written on sheet music. Its probably easier to think of the cut as having no duration and that it is just part of the note that is infront of it.
Cuts on Repeated Notes
The simplest use of a cut is on a repeated note to help seperate them. When two notes of the same value are played side by side and need to be sperated you can either close all the chanter holes, do a strike or do a cut.
Keep them open, slow and on the beat at first before speeding them up.
The videos below will show you an example of a cut done slowly and then up to speed. Pay special attention to the slow one.
Keep them open, slow and on the beat at first before speeding them up.
The videos below will show you an example of a cut done slowly and then up to speed. Pay special attention to the slow one.
Cuts on D
Cuts on D are performed by lifting your bottom middle finger quickly.
Cut on D Exercise #1
Cuts on E
Cuts on E are performed by lifting your bottom top finger quickly.
Cut on E Exercise #1
Cuts on F#
Cuts on F# are performed by lifting your top bottom finger quickly.
Cut on F# Exercise #1
Cuts on G
Cuts on G are performed by lifting your top middle finger quickly.
Cut on G Exercise #1
Bottom Hand Cut Exercise #1